'Hate Story 3': Erotic revenge drama encore (IANS Review - *1/2)

Film: "Hate Story 3"; Cast: Sharman Joshi, Zareen Khan, Karan Singh Grover, Daisy Shah, Priyanshu Chatterjee; Director: Vishal Pandya; Rating: *1/2

A business tycoon Aditya Diwan (Sharman Joshi) is at the helm of a large business empire and is married to his elder brother's girlfriend, Siya (Zareen Khan), after the demise of his elder brother Vikram Diwan (Priyanshu Chatterjee) in a plane crash.

They are leading a happy life and all's hunky-dory till one day, Saurav Singhania (Karan Singh Grover), meets him, makes an offer, which Aditya declines and Sourav decides to destroy Aditya's business and life. Why? No one knows till the end of the film. That, in essence, forms the crux of the two-hour long film, "Hate Story 3".

This apart, there are lots of erotic sex and a couple of lacklustre songs in Mika's voice, thrown in for good measure.

Of course in keeping with the theme of the franchise, revenge, remains the core issue at the heart of this film too.

Sharman as the business tycoon is miscast and tries hard to shed his good-boy image, but does not succeed even though he is a competent actor. He seems a wee bit uncomfortable in that so-called suave and confident corporate avatar.

Karan definitely has a decent screen presence, swagger and indulges in some action too.

Zareen has a fair share of screen time and has come a long way from her previous films, but still has a long way to go.

Daisy too cavorts around as a glam doll, although she looks anything but that.

Vaswani (Prithvi Zutshi), on the other hand, plays the loyal lackey to the hilt.

Performances apart, it is the story that is a hackneyed one, oft seen in Bollywood and no attempt has been made to handle it differently either. The script is shoddy and is poorly executed.

The characters are one-dimensional and lack depth. Coming from Vikram Bhatt, it is a bit of a disappointment.

The music, even though it is a T-Series film, disappoints equally. The production quality of the film is decent.

In parts, the film manages to arouse some intrigue value, owing to the motive of the mystery man Saurav Singhania. But that's all that keeps you engrossed.

We have had two 'Hate Stories' in the past, but we are not sure what one is to do with this one. Do we love to hate it, or hate it altogether?

Watch it if you are a fan of Vikram Bhatt's writing or you have nothing better to do this weekend.